Nobody’s makin’ the big bucks by pitching their products to an empty room. If you’re a small business owner with a little boutique, restaurant, or car repair garage, it’s pretty easy to tell when you have no customers… ———–> no one’s walking through the front door. But, in the age of social media where regardless of your own following, you are still bombarded with hundreds of posts a day, that amount of newsfeed traffic can give the illusion that your actual audience is bigger than it really is. It’s time to face facts: if you want to be successful in online marketing, you gotta have a tribe to which you can market. I’m not just talking about an audience or following. If you want to sell your goods using social media, you need to have a base of dedicated fans that are true ideal customers.

Picture this. Your business is your life, your baby, your EVERYTHING! You work from sunup ‘til sundown doing everything you can to make sure it’s successful. At night, you’re either up worrying or asleep dreaming about ways to make it even better. Because you know your business inside and out, you know you need to up your social media marketing game, but this whole Facebook Live show thing has you a little… terrified, sweaty, uncomfortable, nauseated… (the list goes on). After weeks of pep talks and a couple of times where you almost pushed that “go live” button, then chickened out, you’ve finally worked up the courage to record your first live broadcast. You outlined some (not to brag) kickass content, you made sure you’re set up with the latest tech, and you’re lookin’ fine in your new #badassboss outfit. After your first live show, you’re feeling pumped!! … even though only 2 people showed up (…including your mom).

Facebook Live is all the rage these days–and for good reason! Lots of people are jumping on the FB Live bandwagon to reach potential customers and grow their businesses. From makeup tutorials to marketing seminars, FB Live can be a powerful tool for connecting with your audience and getting your target demographic to take action–whatever that may be. But today, I’d like to talk about not just killing it with your lives, but turning your live show into a lead-generating machine.

Warning: Possible side effects may result from using Facebook Messenger Bots. They include but are not limited to increased direct messages to your Facebook Page, a huge rise in your email subscribers, and incessant smiling. I repeat: do NOT read this blog post unless you are prepared to grow your email list in a massive way, get a mountain of messages in your inbox, and feel like doing a happy dance with no music at all. And you better get ready for that business to grow because after implementing this easy-little tactic, you might have a lot more leads on your hands. Today I’m going to be sharing with you one simple trick that, when implemented, will exponentially increase the engagement that you receive on your Facebook Live broadcasts.

Sitting down in front of a camera and broadcasting yourself in front of a live audience can be, well… ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING! What am I going to say?! What if I have food in my teeth?! What if everybody sees my giant sweat stains?! … There are so many things to worry about. What can be even more daunting–not to mention discouraging–is showing up on Facebook Live week after week and watching your viewer counts jump from… 0 to 1 back to 0 up to 1 back down to 0 and “way back up,” ending with a measly 3 (including your mom… and your cat) I mean, that can really play with your mind, right?

A lot of people hear about the amazing things Facebook Live shows can do for their business. Live broadcasts can boost engagement → which lead to greater reach in newsfeeds → which leads to more eyes on your Facebook Business Page → which oftentimes translates into more business for you. For all those reasons and more, Facebook Live can be an invaluable marketing tool for so many people. But guess what guys? Despite it’s amazing-ness, Facebook Live is NOT a fix-all marketing solution for everybody. Sorry–there’s no amount of Facebook Live fairy dust that’s going to bippity-boppity-boo your company into immediate success. I wish…